


Hard Feelings

by hurricxneamelia



Series: Somehow Good Love Hurts Worse [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Existential Angst, F/F, Gay, the very beginning of a long redemption arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:13:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22248442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricxneamelia/pseuds/hurricxneamelia
Summary: The castle’s hallways are hollow. Sounds seem to echo more than they did before and that hollow ache traverses not only the cavernous stone but the souls of those living within. Anna Ripley has watched Delilah Briarwood for two weeks. She has barely spoken a word in that time frame.
Relationships: Delilah Briarwood/Anna Ripley
Series: Somehow Good Love Hurts Worse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601596
Kudos: 3





	Hard Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to 'Tempt my Trouble'

The castle’s hallways are hollow. Sounds seem to echo more than they did before and that hollow ache traverses not only the cavernous stone but the souls of those living within. Anna Ripley has watched Delilah Briarwood for two weeks. She has barely spoken a word in that time frame. 

It has been two weeks since Sylas Briarwood’s demise. It has been two weeks since fate or perhaps some god to which Anna Ripley has seldom given more than a passing thought has intervened and irrevocably changed the paths of Delilah Briarwood and herself. In general, she has never considered the divine or any power above man’s ingenuity beyond a comfort at best or frivolous entertainment at worst. When she met the Briarwoods, their zealotry for the god which they only called ‘The Whispered One’ irritated her on her bad days, but otherwise she ignored it. Now, she finds herself wondering what will happen to that worship and to that devotion. She had deduced Sylas had been directly tied to it, and with his death what would this god do? 

Anna almost laughs at herself as she considers it. She is actually considering a God’s influence. To what extent does she believe it though? And to what extent does believe it has and can touch her? To what extent has it touched the current situation? Or is the current situation one made purely of human desire and action? These uncertainties spin in the doctor’s head as she moves about her day.

Perhaps she is foolish for even considering a higher power. After all, it was her gun, her actions, Delilah’s magic, and their lust that brought them to that moment. That modicum of thought brings her to a new tangent: her own emotional state. Ever since she was a child, she has learnt to rationalise and put emotions secondary and of course Delilah is just the opposite. Her blunt, cold intelligence is what gave her the job she had for King Bertrand though, that wretched king. It has carried her so far, but Delilah Briarwood uprooted all of that. 

The necromancer spun her own arcane traps over Anna and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. She undid her at the seams and made her vulnerable whilst Anna attempted to do the same. She searched and searched. The woman in her bed for so long was a puzzle to unravel until she was something more. But it is possible Delilah beat her unintentionally at her own game. She found and unlocked a very deep part of Anna Ripley which the woman has not faced in years. 

She’s scared. And she hates herself for it. She isn’t supposed to be scared. She is always sure, but now she only finds herself sure when she is dissecting a vein or working with chemicals but around the woman who laid her bare in every way, she is unsure. She wants Delilah. She knows that much. She wants to feel more of the warm rush in her chest and she wants to have what she grew up believing she could never prioritise: love. Then again, she doesn’t know when any of this has changed, and some small voice laughs in the back of her head telling her to stick to anatomy and medicine; however, as she glances over at the dark haired woman lying listlessly in bed. She has no instinct to flee. 

And she has no idea what scares her more: the fact that she wants to stay or the fact that she cares as much as she does for the pain in her darling’s eyes. 

Delilah’s dark eyes stare glassily up at the ceiling. The embers of thoughts flicker and fight to stay alight as grief and all-consuming conflict take residence in her mind. Slowly, she processes what she can. Little by little she labours through the emotions and sickening feeling in the pit of her mostly empty stomach which accompanies them. 

Sylas is dead. He is dead. The more she says it, aloud or in her head the less real it becomes. Soon it is meaningless. It is almost like the first time he died and she cried out to the Whispered One for help, it just doesn’t feel real. But this time, somewhere in the hollow numb feeling, she knows that it’s real. 

On a certain level, she’s processed that fact and she’s okay with that. Love in life is not subject to eternal permanence, even as much as she’d like it to be (oh it’d be so much easier if it were). On a more surface level she is flickering between surging grief, guilt, and numbness. Grief for the man who consumed her life, loved her, and guided her. Guilt for still feeling the love for the cold doctor in her bed; after all, without the doctor, there wouldn’t be grief. They’re contingent concepts. It’s fitting, Delilah muses, for grief to follow a doctor; a doctor is a mortal herald of death. And from the grief and guilt sprouts the withering numbness. 

She sinks gladly into the unfeeling abyss. In the first few days she cried her tears out and screamed her throat raw in grief. Then, in the succeeding days she cried more as the demons waged war in her head. Now she’s given in and she lets them fight. She lets them dig their rapiers in and lets the pain course through her body in rushes, and then she happily sinks back into the numbness. It’s easier to process it all that way.

She can’t go back. Her life-string has been woven in this way, perhaps by her own choice and heart but perhaps by divinity. Either way, she is on an unsure path. She Sylas and Anna fled the Empire with the intention of just that. 

Taking over Whitestone had several purposes. One was to take advantage of its political isolation to continue to hide, and another was for the Whispered One. Delilah wonders now if it was all worth it. She doesn’t in that moment quite consider the bloodshed in its full glory but she considers: was it worth it? She grew up in Wildemount and trained in the Rexxentrum at the Soltryce Academy. Years later, the teachings still ring in the necromancer’s ears. Though, looking back even after all these years of attempting to remember she cannot remember everything properly. She does remember the extreme magics, the harsh measures, and the suppression of any trait teachers deemed ‘soft’ or ‘unsuitable.’ Perhaps why none of her actions seem outlandish. 

Still, worth it or not, she is ‘leading’ a people alone, her partner is dead, and her lover is responsible. The absurdity of it all almost sparks a bit of laughter for intellect’s sake. The principal of absurdity is simple (at least in this particular context) and she mulls it over in her head: anything that is outside of a society’s perceived norms and values. She can almost laugh at how absurd her situation is. Her response is also absurd with respect to her desperate search to find a meaning in any of this or a reason. It is human nature to look for such an abstraction in these situations, but she has yet to find any and she doubts she’ll find any. 

Even thinking of her God. Even praying to him. He does not answer, and so Delilah awaits his retribution and punishment. She’s known since Sylas’ death that he would have his justice. Sylas was his tie and his prize. She knows she could continue in their quest alone and hope for the best, but is it worth it? 

That is the question she finds herself facing at all corners no matter how hard she attempts to avoid it. Suddenly, everything she envisioned at the Whispered One’s side seems distant and useless. Perhaps Anna’s cold logic had a point. Gods and man seldom stood side by side.   
She knows she still believes in divinity, but she doesn’t know is if she is disillusioned. 

Delilah has been disillusioned about many things in life. It’s bound to happen when one is so strongly rooted in the emotions that run red and blue through the system of veins in the human body working in conjunction with the rapidly firing delicate neurons. Her response to disillusionment is always the same. She falls and falls hard until she hits the ground with a hollow crack. The same hormone filled blood that pulsed in her veins spills onto the cold stone and she weeps. She berates herself for believing in the follies of what was promised. She’s naive by no means, but she’s not half-hearted. 

The blood on the stone dries and then she rises and claws her way up, promising herself to be better. Promising herself she’s never going to fall down the same hole again. She learned her lesson with her schooling. She knows the academy is not a place for the faint of heart or the naive like she perhaps was as a child. She rose atop and conquered the academy, however. Deliah Brairwood was a professor at the academy. 

When she married Sylas, she found herself caught in the happiness of love and marriage and peace, something she’d seldom experienced since she was a child. Then he’d gotten sick and her rose, love filled glasses shattered, but from the ashes she schemed her way out. She raised Sylas from dead. 

Now, here in Whitestone, she had believed she is wise enough, but she seems to be wrong. Once again, she found herself caught up in her heart and the fallout crushed her wings and silenced her heart. She’s like a phoenix; a dark feathered, dangerous bird, and she’ll rise from the ashes but right now she can only lie in the rubble and reform. 

Delilah isn’t sure if she feels that way with her God. He has been silent. There have been no whispered dreams. No signs. Silence. Her ideals as dictated by the Whispered One stand, but on a hill of sand, falling grain by grain. If she becomes disillusioned with him, maybe the fall won’t be so hard. After all, she’s already bleeding onto the stone. What’s one more layer of rubble?

Delilah does realise that she has Anna Ripley by her side. She is not alone, and if she can just speak, perhaps the woman beside her can help her rise. At that thought though, a pillar of self-pitying guilt rises in her gut along with some bile. If only she hadn’t started to fall for the doctor.   
If only it had been left at midnight kisses and being fucked into submission then in the morning returning to their working relationship. Delilah laments the simplicity of what it once was for Sylas was supposed to be her love, but gazing at the dark-haired pale woman beside her she cannot regret feeling for her. It is human nature to be this complex she supposes, but it becomes tiresome. 

In some ways, Delilah admires Anna. She admires her rationality and her ability to block out the emotion of a situation. Anna can observe a situation for what it is easily; whereas Delilah has issues doing so. Of course there are a multitude of other traits which Delilah loves about the woman, but that is one trait she specifically admires. 

She wonders if she had Anna’s perspective if perhaps the situation would be less arduous. She swallows the thought painfully as her own inner monologue chides her: she is stuck with herself. Little does she know though, Anna’s rationality is clouded. 

They’ve not communicated enough, and it is not for a lack of trying. Anna is trying to understand where Delilah is in mourning, and she is trying to understand how the woman copes. From what she can ascertain observationally, it seems to be in short bursts of emotion and now she’s shut down. Delilah is following the model for the stages of grief it seems. 

At least that’s what Anna’s medically trained brain says, but this newly awakened young, quiet voice in her head reminds her it’s more complicated. Humans aren’t psychological models in a book and of course Anna knows this but she’s never paid much attention to the fact. This voice however, is forcing her to do so. Delilah is more than her grief for Sylas.

After all, she recognises there wouldn’t be any need for grief had she and Delilah not begun an affair. She assumes there’s emotion behind that and most likely some sort of processing and dreadful anticipation with that God of hers. Though, that loathsome fear that lives in this new voice in Anna’s subconscious stops her from unpacking any assumptions. She doesn’t know anything, even when Delilah tells her what she feels, or in the past has told her, she truly doesn’t know. Feelings are a guessing game. She doesn’t want to wade through hints and clues and jump to any incorrect conclusions, nor does she want to be unable to solve a particular puzzle of emotion. She hates uncertainty and in this case, she doesn’t want to be hurt. 

She’s spent her whole life letting any and all weapons (both figurative and literal) richot off of her titanium shell. It’s not an arduous task; in fact, Anna prefers this to letting things affect her. Focusing on what is important to her is more rewarding and much easier than focusing on what others have to say. In some light, she supposes it is a flaw. Her hubris did get the best of her. It is what set her on the path with the Briarwoods to Whitestone.

But, underneath layers of hubris and the very essence of Anna Ripley the voice now awakened and filled with fear of being hurt by the woman beside her. Is this what it is to love? Is this what it feels like to want someone on a level beyond flesh and stolen kisses? 

She always told herself she’d be in love with her work. After all, the sinew and bones she loves working with were her first love, but now she has someone. She’s always been a practical woman and she’s never seen the practicality of having someone to love. They can hurt you, but now she wrestles with herself. Delilah Briarwood is something to her. She is more than just something. 

Are the fear and the vulnerability and the uncertainty that now plague her being signs that she loves the mourning woman before her?  
It is on the fourth day of the third week that Delilah drags herself out of her bed. Anna is about the castle, and a surprised Cassandra De Rolo watches with weary wide eyes as an exhausted (despite having slept for days) Delilah makes her way through the halls. Her footsteps echo. She notices and thinks that maybe the echo is more prominent than before. 

She finds Anna in her lab below the castle. The only sounds that reach her ears as she slips through the door are the sound of a saw and metal against metal. Those sounds echo too. When she takes in the scene before her, a sigh of relief almost escapes her lips.

It is so familiar. Anna is sitting hunched over on one of her stools, hovered over a flayed open arm of a body. Delilah can’t tell if the subject is dead or alive, and frankly has no desire to know. “Anna.” She says in a voice that is her own but carries a false bravado. 

The doctor’s head sharply whips up. Her face morphs from a thin line to a more neutral expression and she raises an eyebrow, “Oh, Delilah. You’re up.” 

“Yes.” She considers belaboring the point or making small talk, asking about the affairs of the castle, but all of that seems pointless in the moment. “Are you doing anything important?” 

Anna glances back over to the open arm, and back over at the necromancer in front of her. “No.” She stands abruptly. She can finish what she was doing later. After all, human flesh is all the same reddish brown no matter what. “Is there anything you need, darling?” she raises her brow further as she makes her way into the hall, Delilah following. 

“I wanted to just talk to you.” The voice is soft and the words are words Anna has been dreading. Not because she doesn’t care for Delilah, but because most likely she’ll have to sort out emotional assumptions.

“Go ahead. I’m listening,” she says anyway with a nod.

“I- I’m sorry for grieving him,” Delilah says almost immediately the cadence of her voice becoming much more rushed. 

“You’ve every right to do so.” Anna says with a small nod which she hopes is encouraging. This is so unlike the woman she has known. So vulnerable and stripped away, even after seeing this state for weeks she is still almost scared by it for her. Then she adds, “You loved him for so long, and did so much for him. You’re allowed to mourn his loss.” She observes the woman’s face for a reaction.

The one she receives is only a brief wince, “Yes, that is true; however, I don’t want to come off as…” she trails off, for once at a loss for words, “as insensitive toward what I feel for you Anna. Because that hasn’t changed, and I don’t believe it will. His death is just… quite a bit to process. You know it was never my plan for him to die. I hadn’t quite fully formed what exactly my plan was, but his death wasn’t part of it.”

This grief ridden Delilah is a shell of the woman Anna knew, and she doesn’t shy away from this for once in her life. She decides to stay in that moment, but she’s not a woman of words in situations like these. After all, she knows the flesh, it is her trade. So, she pulls Delilah down for a kiss, gentler than usual. She hopes to convey an apology for her lack of words and any semblance of understanding she can muster. Thankfully, Delilah reciprocates. 

When the women pull away, Anna’s brown eyes meet Deliah’s green eyes with intent. “It is okay to mourn.”


End file.
